


saltwater band-aids

by OnyxSphynx



Series: newmann one-shots [86]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, look newt had the precursors fucking around in his head for a decade he's not doing great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 23:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20125579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx
Summary: After the Precursors are excised from Newt's mind, the damage they've done still remains; Newt’s used to pushing himself to—and, often, beyond—his own limitations in ways that he simply wasn’t before.After all, the world needs to be saved—and from something that’s his fault, nonetheless.





	saltwater band-aids

**Author's Note:**

> anon asked: "Hey! Would you please write this prompt? I think you'd do great with it! "My phone ran out of battery" + "I literally just heard someone calling you. Your phone did not run out of battery.""

Hermann’s hovering by his side—he can’t see him, not with his gaze fixed solidly on the tablet in front of him, but he can _feel_ Hermann’s presence—and Newt blinks; shifts in his seat, trying to string together words through the haze in his mind. “…yeah?”

A moment of silence, then, “Perhaps you should…leave the rest of that for tomorrow? You look,” he hesitates. “Tired.”

“Nah, it’s…it’s fine,” Newt replies, “plus, we’ve got a ticking clock—the Anteverse isn’t going to invade itself, you know?” He gives a short laugh—just a bit too high, he thinks, because Hermann, who’s moved into his line of sight, flinches. “No, really, though, I should get this done.”

“…alright,” Hermann says, though Newt can tell he’s not happy about it. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then—do remember to go to bed, please, for your own health.”

“Mmkay,” Newt says, and pulls the tablet closer, ignoring the burn of his eyes at the light of the screen. “G’night.”

The _click_ of Hermann’s cane against the floor slowly fades away, leaving Newt alone in the lab; he turns his attention back to the program he’s running, ignores the way that his fingers grow numb in the cold air.

The words and numbers seem to float before him, refusing to stay put on the document. Progress is slow and frustrating, like trying to wade through mud, but what he told Hermann is true; this _is_ important, and it’s critical that he do his part to ensure the destruction of the Precursors.

He scrubs his eyes, blinks in an attempt to get rid of the sensation of sand scraping against the insides of his eyelids; checks the time and does a double-take.

It’s past one in the morning—it’s been three hours since Hermann went to bed, and he’s accomplished—what, exactly? Three measly lines of notes—as if _that’s_ going to help destroy the Precursors.

So, in essence, nothing. He’s done _nothing._

He grits his teeth, hard; he has to do this—it’s _his_ fault they even _need_ to take the fight to the Precursors. It’s his failing, his weakness, that allowed the Precursors to gain a foothold, to almost _destroy the world._

And he’s not managed to do _anything_ to try and make up for that.

He realises, with a start, that the red spotting on the table is blood—his nails dug deep into his palms, leaving angry, bloody crescents. He unclenches them, biting back a hiss of pain; rises from his seat and makes his way over to the sink.

The soap stings, but finally, the water washes away clear and cold. He switches off the tap and goes back to the desk.

He’s going to get this done. It’s what he has to do—his penance, if he’s being poetic, but it’s true.

There aren’t any windows in the lab, so his only indication that the hours have passed by is the red display on the clock on his desk; other than that, he loses himself in the flow of data and analysis—something he’d never had the patience for before, well.

_Before._

Now, though, he’s used to pushing himself to—and, often, _beyond_—his own limitations in ways that he simply _wasn’t_ before. He can ignore the burn of light against his retinas, ignore the burn of the cold air against his skin.

After all, the world needs to be saved—and from something that’s his fault, nonetheless.

He doesn’t even realise Hermann’s come in until the other sets a hand on his shoulder.

Newt flinches at the touch; feels a pang of loss when Hermann jerks his hand away at the motion. “What are _you_ doing here?” he asks.

“It’s half-past eight in the morning, Newton,” Hermann frowns. “I’ve been here since eight.”

“Oh,” Newt says, blinks to try and clear the blurriness away. “Right.”

Hermann hesitates. Finally, he says, “You’ll let me know if you need anything?” For some reason, Newt gets the impression that that’s not what he was originally going to say. The expression on his face, perhaps—a flicker in his eyes, the cast of his gaze; a reluctance in the set of his brow.

Newt swallows. “Yeah, sure,” he says, hoping desperately that it sounds truer than he knows it to be. “Uh, I kinda have work to do, so…” 

“Er, yes, of course.” Hermann bites his lip, looking as if he’s about to say something, but in the end, opts simply to turn away and make his way back to the blackboards.

Newt rubs an icy finger against his palm before he returns to his work.

Around him, the lab falls away, giving in to the white buzz of his mind, punctuated only by the scrape of chalk in the background—the only thing from the real world that he’s aware of besides the tablet on his desk.

He’s pulled out of it when the stylus in his hand drops to the ground, skitters across the floor. He frowns, stands to retrieve it, and immediately has to grasp the edge of the desk for support as his vision blackens.

“—ewton? Newton?” Hermann’s voice pierces through the veil of darkness, and he shakes his head, the motion clearing it away.

“Yeah?” he asks, bending over to pick up the stylus; turns to find Hermann turned to look at him, something uncomfortably like pity on his face. “D’you need something?” he questions, tone harsher than intended.

“No, I—” Hermann pauses, one hand holding onto the rung, the other by his side, and purses his lips. “Perhaps you should eat something?” he suggests.

Newt shakes his head. “Nah, I’m—I’m fine,” he assures the other.

Hermann gives him a long look. “Alright,” he says, at length. “I’m going to go eat something—are you sure you don’t want me to—?”

“_Yes,_” Newt snaps. “Yeah. I’m sure. I just—” he sighs. “I have more work to do,” he finishes quietly.

Hermann peers at him, but, in the end, says nothing; shimmies down the ladder and grabs his cane. For a moment, he hovers at the bottom of the ladder, as if debating whether or not to leave, before he steps off the rung and pushes open the doors.

Newt pretends that the way that Hermann doesn’t say anything to him for the rest of the day doesn’t leave him feeling like his lungs are full of glass shards when he breathes.

He does go back to his quarters that night; splashes water on his face and brushes his teeth—wonders, briefly, if mint toothpaste has always been this _bitter_—and—

The bed sits forebodingly against the wall, sheets crisp and perfectly made; it looks unused.

It—

Well, it _is._

Newt hasn’t slept in it—not yet.

Every time he tries to lay down—even just on top of the covers, even exhausted out of his mind, it feels like a betrayal; how can he sleep when there’s work to be done? 

The last time he slept properly was when he was drugged up in the medbay after the Precursors were excised from his mind. Since then, he’s been taking cat-naps in the lab and, when he _does_ return to his quarters, he doesn’t sleep until he physically collapses of exhaustion, falls asleep over whatever piece of work he grabbed from the lab.

The prospect of sleep is…daunting.

The first—and only—time he attempted to sleep after the drug-induced stupor in the medical bay was…unpleasant, to say the least.

(Memories of flashing blue, of the jolt of electricity making his spine arch, pain shoved aside as they force him into the Drift; of days spent awake, fueled by coffee and determination as his hands code lines to put in motion a plan built by the kaiju masters.

Pain; fear; anger.

Hermann’s eyes, forgiving, even as Newt’s hands tighten around his neck; fingers rubbing his own, comfortingly.)

He blinks, vision clearing; the room swims back into view. Gingerly, he climbs onto the bed and rests his head on the pillow, closes his eyes—

There’s something grabbing his legs—clawing at them, and he can’t move; he’s stuck, frozen—

He jolts upright with a gasp, looks down to find his legs tangled in kaiju guts—

_Sheets._ His legs are tangled in the _sheets._ He’s—he’s fine.

He’s shaking.

He can’t—he can’t do this. He can’t be in this bed.

As quickly as possible, he untagles his legs; crawls out of the bed and onto the floor, leans back against the side of the bed; draws his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped around them; fingers gripping arms like icy anchors.

He closes his eyes and tries to breath without instantly dredging up flashes of yellow-green fluid and a kaiju brain in a penthouse that he barely ever lived in.

Finally, in the early hours of the morning, he drifts into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

The next day, he can’t focus.

The very air around him seems to be prickling at his skin—everything is both too fast and too slow at the same time, and he can’t _think._

He knows what it is; it’s the unique after-effects of various mental health issues and thousands of Drifts thrown into a melting pot and simmered over the proverbial flame—a decade’s worth of time spent, instead of in therapy, like he should have been, or, hell, even _taking his meds,_ running around, the Precursors’ leashed puppet without even knowing it until it was too late.

The only reason he’s not a mess of tapping and jittering right now is because he’s elbow-deep in dissecting and analysing one of the cloned kaiju brains.

Not even the music that, oddly enough, _Hermann_ is the one to turn on, blasting as loudly as it can manages to calm his mind.

Hermann won’t even snap at him, Newt thinks, bitterly; he’s too afraid that Newt’ll _break_like fucking fine china.

He licks dry lips and sniffles; he’s having difficulty breathing—it must be a cold he picked up from someone. It’ll resolve itself soon enough. 

In the meantime, he has work to do, and a whack brain to cope with.

He tries not to flinch as one of the brain-tentacle-thingies flop over on the dissection table—for a moment, it’s almost as if it’s moving of its own volition, and Newt does _not_want that—

Yeah, that’s. Yeah. Not fun memories there, brain, thanks.

“I think I’m going to take a walk,” Newt announces, mostly to himself. He’s not even sure Hermann _hears_ him over the music. He turns it off on his way out—Hermann’ll appreciate the quiet.

The shatterdome is quiet—this late in the evening, and on a Saturday, most people are in bed, or at least heading in that direction. He only comes across a few J-techs—is that even what they’re called anymore?—on the way through the halls.

He doesn’t have a specific destination in mind, but he finds himself heading up to the roof.

It’s drizzling lightly when he opens the roof access, the rain hitting the lenses of his glasses and blurring his vision. He steps out onto the roof and stumbles in a sudden, unusually harsh gust of wind.

The wind batters his frame, but he ignores it, pushing forward towards the edge of the roof; sits on the ground—it isn’t _that_ wet, really—and gazes into the sky.

There are hundreds—_thousands_—of pinpricks against the indigo of the sky; he stares up at them, momentarily in awe; he can’t remember the last time he’s seen so _many_ stars—in Shanghai, the Precursors didn’t care, and even if they had, light-pollution meant that he wouldn’t’ve been able to see much, anyway; and before that, in Hong Kong, they were frantically scrambling to try and stave off the kaiju—not much time to sit and stargaze.

He stares at them—manages, even, to pick out a few familiar constellations.

Soon, though, he’s soaked through and shivering, chilled to the bone—and, to make matters worse, he still has work to get done.

He barely manages to make it halfway back to the lab.

He lets out a ragged breath; braces against the wall for support.

There’s no _way_ he’s going to manage to get there; he needs to sit down—or, preferably, _lay_down.

“Lay down,” he murmurs aloud, and shudders. He doesn’t want—

He doesn’t _want_ to _move_ another step.

Still, he forces one foot in front of the other; the drip of his hair has subsided, and he feels numb rather than frigidly cold, so he’s _probably_ fine.

Hermann’s already turned in for the night by the time he gets back—he’s left a sticky-note on the door, and put Newt’s samples into the cooler, which is pretty rad of him, honestly.

He manages to finish up what he left hanging when he left; as soon as he’s done, he puts everything away and slinks back to his quarters, drags the pillow off the bed, and falls asleep on the ground, not even bothering to change out of his clothes.

* * *

When he wakes, his head’s pounding; a fog clouds his thoughts, clings to them like smog, and his skin feels like it’s going to burn off. He can’t fucking _think._ His brain feels like mush, and he’s pretty sure he’s got like, three pounds of liquid right behind his eyes.

“Ugh, _fuck,_” he groans, and then winces at the sound of his own voice and the pain of _speaking._ His throat feels like someone went at it with _sandpaper._

He drops his head back onto the pillow and drags a hand up; tries to rub his eyes, and gives a hiss, because, apparently, they’re _very_ sensitive right now.

Fuck. He can barely move let alone stand _up._

His eyes slip shut, dragging his mind into the swirling black of unconsciousness.

* * *

The sound of knocking on the door wakes him; pulls him out of the liminal space of not quite asleep fully and not nearly awake. There’s a ringing near his head; a spam call. He declines it.

“Whassit?” he croaks, voice hoarse. He swallows, then regrets the motion.

“Newton?”

_Hermann._

“I—” he cranes his neck to view the clock.

_Shit._ It’s past two in the afternoon. He’s _way_ late. Hermann’s going to be _pissed._

“Mmyeah?” he manages, desperately trying to get up off of the floor; fails miserably.

“Can I come in?”

Hermann’s request startles him—why on earth would Hermann want to come _in?_ He realises he’s left the other hanging, and bites out, “Yeah.”

There’s the sound of the doorknob turning—unlocked, he always keeps it unlocked, now—and then Hermann steps in, face set in a stern expression—

And freezes.

Newt closes his eyes and braces himself for the worst; for Hermann to scold him about responsibility, to rip him apart for letting it get this far; because he _deserves_ that, to be honest; _expects_ it.

What he doesn’t expect is for Hermann to stride across the small room, lower himself to Newt’s side; on hand going to his forehead, the other cupping his jaw. “You’ve got a _raging_fever,” he says, softly. “Newton, you look _awful._ Why didn’t you just call me?”

“My phone ran out of battery,” Newt says—the first excuse that comes to mind. _I didn’t want to burden you,_ is the truth of it.

Hermann glares at him half-heartedly. “I literally _just_ heard someone calling you. Your phone didn’t run out of battery.” Still, though, his tone has that horribly gentle quality to it.

“M’fine,” Newt says. “You’ve made sure I’m not dying, you can go now. I know you have work you need to get done—”

“My _work,_” Hermann says, shortly, eyes flashing, “is _secondary._” His hand, the one cupping Newt’s jaw, tilts his head so Newt’s eyes meet his. Newt swallows.

“It’s not,” he says. “Your work is—your work is about saving the world, Herms. That’s _way_more important than running around checking up on your idiot labmate who doesn’t fucking know how to handle his shitty mental health.”

There’s a pause, and then Hermann rises to his feet. Newt closes his eyes, head falling back against the pillow, and lets out a soft sigh. He opens them again a few seconds later; Hermann’s nowhere in sight.

He must’ve realised that Newt’s right.

Then Hermann reappears in Newt’s line of sigh, jaw set. “Get up,” he orders.

“Hermann, what—?”

“It’s important to keep warm when you’re sick,” Hermann snaps. “Bed. Now. _Please,_” he adds.

Newt stares at him for a moment, astonished. The other gives him a hard look—there’s no trace of laughter in his eyes; Hermann is dead serious.

Newt manages to half-crawl, half-drag himself onto the bed.

“Do you want the pillow?” Hermann asks, pulling the sheets over him; tucks them in under his chin.

Newt swallows; wonders why Hermann’s even bothering.

“No, thanks,” he says, the words half-lost with the congestion. 

Hermann nods and makes his way to the door to—

_Leave,_ obviously.

Newt lets his eyes slip shut as the door closes behind him.

* * *

He’s awoken, this time, by the sound of the nightstand being dragged across the floor; blinks awake to find Hermann setting a bowl on the top of the nightstand. Hermann notices he’s awake after a few moments, says, softly, “I, ah, brought you some chicken soup for when you’re ready to eat something, and a thick blanket.”

Newt blinks up at him; the pieces of reality—Hermann, a bowl of soup, blankets—just don’t…they don’t make sense. They don’t line _up_ properly. “Blanket?” he questions, hesitantly.

“Yes, of course!” Hermann exclaims. “Give me a moment—”

The blanket—folded neatly and placed at the end of the bed—turns out to be a thick, fuzzy one; dark blue and grey; when Hermann unfolds it and lays it over him, his movements are careful—gentle, almost, as if he doesn’t want to disturb Newt.

Then, he sits down on the side of the bed; gives Newt a searching look.

“What are you doing?”

The question bursts out of Newt, scraping at his throat, before he can think.

Hermann blinks at him. “…staying?” he says. “To take care of you; you’ve burnt yourself out, Newton.”

Newt gives a short bark of laughter; ignores the pain from it. “C’mon, Herms, cut it out,” he says, “you can leave, now. I know you have work you need to do, you don’t need to draw this joke out any longer, okay? I don’t need anyone to pretend to care. I can—I can deal with myself.”

The other stares at him; bewildered. “Joke?” he questions, “Newt, why on earth would I do that?”

Newt stares at him, the pieces of the puzzle clicking against each other in his mind, until, finally, they fall into place.

Hermann _means_ it.

The surprise shows on his face—Hermann’s own expression crumbles, just a bit, and he leans forward, brushing away the strands of hair stuck to Newt’s forehead. “Oh, Newton,” he murmurs, “it’s alright to want people to help you; it’s alright to ask for it, Newton. It’s what we want to do—we _want_ to help, Newton.”

“Oh,” Newt says, numbly.

For a moment, it seems like they’re suspended there, unmoving; Hermann’s hand hovering over Newt’s forehead, Newt’s breath caught in his throat.

“You care?” Newt asks, hesitantly, barely daring to believe it.

Hermann draws in a breath; gently strokes Newt’s hair. “Newton,” he says, softly; eyes meeting his own, “of course I do. I always have.”

Newt drifts off with Hermann’s hand carding through his hair; for the first time in longer than he remembers, the hollowness in his chest gone; replaced, instead, by a comforting warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at [pacificrimdyke](https://pacificrimdyke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
